‘Our first Superhero’ (Conclusion)

I wrote this in 2013, during the 30th death anniversary of Sen. Benigno S. Aquino Jr.

Both parents demanded good grades from their children. But what was important to Ninoy and Cory was that their five children grew up with an abiding love of country. (President Noynoy Aquino told this writer that Cory once said that if none of her five children ended up in public service, then Ninoy and her must have done something wrong.)

Ninoy and Cory didn’t just preach love of country to their children, they walked their talk. Even when they were little, the Aquino children were made to realize how fortunate they were — and not just because they had many of life’s comforts. “Dad would give away the shirt off his back,” says Pinky. “He always made us feel we were lucky because we were in a position to help others.”

Pinky, who was born near Christmas Day, particularly wondered why she was distributing, rather than receiving, gifts during her birthday.

“He would always say I’m so lucky because I have such a big party,” she remembers her father telling her. “I said, ‘Why am I the one giving gifts? When I go to a birthday party, it’s the (celebrator) who gets the gifts’!”

“Because you’re so lucky,” she remembers her father’s response. “I’m like, what? Anyway, I just had to accept it. That was one instance when he would always explain, ‘You’re so lucky that’s why you should give back’.”

Ballsy says it was “seeing the way they both lived” that ingrained into Ninoy and Cory’s children their father’s uncompromising love of country. “Nagkaganito-ganito na nga ang buhay namin during martial law, sige pa rin ang paninindigan nila,” she recounts.

“We could sense,” Pinky says softly, but with no bitterness, “that in Dad’s priority level, without having to say it, the country was really number one. One talaga. Family was below country.”

Ninoy’s first disciple in the family was Cory.

“There was a time that even Mom kind of felt like us. But then time came when Mom also felt that it was country above family. I said, ‘Mom, pati ikaw country na before family!’ And she told me, ‘You will get to that point. Don’t rush it, it will come. There will come a time when you, too, will believe that country will come before family’.”

The Aquinos didn’t think at first that when Ninoy was arrested after the declaration of martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, that it would be a long, difficult road ahead of them. Perhaps they had hoped the outcry from both foreign and local freedom fighters would pressure President Marcos into releasing his nemesis from prison after a few days. But the worst was yet to come. Days turned into weeks, months, years.

And all throughout the most difficult times, Cory’s support was unwavering.

“I realized my dad couldn’t have been like that if he didn’t marry a Cory. Dad once said, ‘Cory, thank you talaga.’ Because Mom always strengthened Dad’s resolve and would tell him, ‘Ninoy, you’re doing the right thing. Kakayanin natin ito.’ For Dad, that meant a lot, naghihirap na ang pamilya namin, but wow, my wife still believes in me and supports me and thinks I should continue the struggle. Lumalakas ang loob niya. And then he was also so grateful to his parents-in-law who were really just behind him. He would tell them, ‘Kayo na bahala kay Cory and sa mga anak ko’.”

The only time they saw their father cry, the only time Superman shed tears, was when he saw his family for the first time after being in solitary confinement for nearly a month at Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija. Blindfolded and handcuffed, he and Sen. Pepe Diokno were flown there in a helicopter on March 12, 1973. Cory wasn’t told where he was, until one day, she and the children, together with the Diokno family, were driven to the Army camp.

After spending nearly a month in a 4 ft. by 5 ft. cell with boarded windows, and subsisting on crackers and water every day (he refused food offered by his captors for fear it would be poisoned), Ninoy lost 25 pounds. He almost lost his fighting spirit, too. When he was finally allowed a visit from Cory and his children, he could only communicate with them through a wall of barbed wire. He couldn’t even hug them. He had lost so much weight he had difficulty keeping his pants in place.

“We never saw signs of weakness in Dad until Laur,” confides Ballsy. “Laur was a super shocker. Dad was crying, we were all crying. Except Mom. I thought, ‘Dad’s crying?! O-M-G. What is this? What happened? He’s given up’.” I even thought he might try to take his life because he told us, ‘Kung minsan parang gusto kong mamatay na ako. Pagod na pagod na ako.’ To see your dad cry for the first time…it almost seemed like our world fell apart. But Mom told him, ‘Ninoy, kaya mo ‘to.’ It was also her first time to see Dad cry, but Mom was just so strong. Dad recovered.”

Ninoy and Pepe Diokno were released from Fort Magsaysay on April 11, 1975, a month after their harrowing ordeal. Diokno was released from military detention in 1975, but Ninoy was to further languish in prison.

* * *

The first time Ninoy was allowed to leave his jail cell in Fort Bonifacio was when the Aquinos’ third daughter Viel graduated valedictorian from her Poveda grade seven class in 1975. During the graduation rites, the parents were taking several photos of the hero in their midst. His military escorts had to confiscate their film.

The second time was Pinky’s college graduation in 1979, and she was graduating with honors. This time, Ninoy was not allowed to go to the University of the Philippines, the so called “Diliman Republic” — for obvious reasons  — to attend her graduation.

Unbeknownst to Cory and the kids, the proud father was allowed, for the first time ever since his incarceration, to go home to Times Street to celebrate his “Double Mommy’s” graduation.

Cory and the kids were quietly celebrating Pinky’s graduation in a Chinese restaurant in Makati, about a 45-minute drive from Times Street, when the driver of their Lolo Pepe (Cory’s dad) came rushing in (there were no mobile phones back then). Ninoy was in Times Sreet, he said, and was only being given a two-hour furlough.

So for the hour that Ninoy was alone in the home that he loved, as he was waiting for his beloved family to arrive from Makati, “he was in his room, checking his closets, having a deja vu,” shares Pinky.

“He cherished every moment at home, though fleeting it was,” recalls Ballsy.

The second time he was allowed to go home to Times Street was during his and Cory’s 25th wedding anniversary, Oct. 11, 1979. (The third — and last — time he returned to Times Street, he was lying, bloodstained, in a coffin.)

* * *

After he suffered a heart attack in his jail cell the following year and underwent surgery in Dallas, Texas, Ninoy breathed the fresh, invigorating air of freedom anew. You would think he would have reveled in it for the rest of his life in the cool climes of New England, where the family spent what Cory once called “the three happiest years of our lives.”

But no, he had barely recovered from heart surgery when he was raring to continue the struggle he had left behind in the Philippines.

 “Before he went back to Dallas for the rehab after his surgery in 1980, he was just so gung-ho about what he wanted to do for the country, even while in exile. And I remember, we felt, ‘Wait, it’s now our time to tell him what’s on our mind.’ In the past, we always gave in to what he said. So in Dallas, we said, ‘Dad, haven’t you given more than enough to the country? Isn’t it time to be with your family?’ He told me, ‘You’re selfish, you don’t know what it means to love the country…’ And then Pinky said something like ‘Just think about your career, Dad.’ But it was, woops! He brooked no argument on that matter.”

Love of country was non-negotiable to Ninoy, undiminished by time or space.

When he left Boston for the last time on Aug. 13, 1983, Pinky thought she would see him again in two weeks in Manila. “I thought ikukulong na naman.”

Ballsy says the family was trying to be positive about Ninoy’s fearless journey back home, that he would just be put under house arrest. “But we noticed when he left, Mom was really not herself. She was so stressed.”

“Dad thought death was more of an option. ‘Maybe they will kill me,’ he said,” Ballsy recounts. “But Dad was the type to see the good in everyone. That’s why he said, ‘I’ll try to return, I’ll try to talk to Marcos. Baka sakali, hindi naman pwede all bad ‘yan. Meron pa rin good in the person’.”

But he never got to talk to Marcos, ever. He was gunned down at high noon at the Manila International Airport on Aug. 21, 1983 by the Marcos regime’s soldiers.

Ballsy and Pinky lost their superhero in an instant — and shared him with the nation forever. (You may e-mail me at [email protected].)